Easter picnic at Camel Rock

 

Not quite indigenous, but a cheerful cotoneaster at the start of our Easter Sunday walk at Constantia Nek. There was quite a turnout today - Pauline, Alice and Maddie, Sue and Honey, Kate, Leanne, Mark and Sally and Florian from Germany. 

Maddie and Alice.

We decided to split the party - dog walkers to take the easy way and non-dog walkers to do a bit of cliff-climbing up Constantia Corner - and we agreed to meet at Camel Rock for tea.

A Roella with tightly closed buds.

The Easter moon was still up in the sky. 

This Common Banded Garden Orbweb Spider (Argiope australis) was waving at us to go away - just look at her very cross face. 

Sue and Kate coming up the path - with Eagles Nest and the start of Constantia Corner in the centre - but we couldn't see the other half of the party ...

they were somewhere up there on the misty crags.

The path eventually joined the Great Dog Highway which we always love. Here is Dougal terrorising an Irish Terrier. (Honey went one better than him to day and managed to bounce a Jack Russell right off the path.)

A dip in the lovely cool waters of the De Villiers Dam - which was built by our next door neighbour's (Jackie Diesveld's) grandfather - John Delbridge - in the late 19th Century.

Are you not coming in?

We all converged on Camel Rock at the same time - pretty good timing, what?

And Kate whipped out some champagne 

and we all proceeded to have a very merry tea. Champagne, chocolates, rusks, Sue biscuits, dog biscuits ...

Pauline, Sally, Mark, Kate, Leanne, Florian, Alice, The Alph and Sue. (Dogs too busy eating dog biscuits to show their heads above the fynbos.)

But Honey still doesn't quite trust us although we think she's quite cool.

Florian, Sally and Kate - with Alice in the background.

Mark - the Barn Swallow expert. 

The Alph and Sue.

Leanne, Florian, Sally and Kate.

There were lots of Cluster Disas (Disa ferruginea) all glistening with South-easter cloud mist. (This is the disa that mimics the nectar-producing Tritoniopsis to lure the Mountain Pride butterfly into pollinating it.)

Setting off after tea - Pauline leading the way.

A white Yellow Rice Heath (Erica lutea).

A wonderfully coloured (if only us dogs could SEE colour!) Hanging Heath (Erica coccinea).

The same Roella bush but this time (about 11 am) with flowers open. The Food Lady thinks its Roella muscosa.

Autumn in the air with the arrival of lots of Oxalis flowers on the path - Boksuring (Oxalis caprina).

Spot the Praying Mantis on this Indigofera cytisoides.

Back to the car park under the gums - tired but very happy dogs - despite the strange lady who thought that we were poor suffering, abandoned, struggling dogs with short legs.

Alice buying Hanepoot grapes at the Constantia Nek circle.

Ghostly walkies

With our Wellington (New Zealand) guests and Stephen and Robynne, we tried to go for a walk in Silvermine but the Southeaster was so black that we decided to give the New Zealanders a break from bad weather and decamped to Constantia Nek which is not so high up. Richard helped Dawnie Dog through the cars and wild SANParks vehicles that hurtle down the mountain roads. Alexander is on the left. We left the road and climbed up and up ... and at the top we encountered this ghostly creature ... who seemed to sense where I was and tried to grab me ... but I got away! Some of the endemic Table Mountain Watsonias (Watsonia tabularis) looming out of the mist. The area where we were walking was once a pine plantation but the pines have recently been felled and the area is returning to beautiful mountain fynbos again. You can see some of the felled pines on the right. Despite the no entry sign Richard and Robynne walked off into the mist, the city of Cape Town somewhere far far far below them, and we just blindly followed, although Dawnie doesn't look too sure about it all.

Luckily we didn't all fall over the edge as the sign suggested, and lived to see this strange parasitic plant - an Ink Flower (Harveya pauciflora) that turns black and inky when it dies. Apparently early colonists used them as a source of writing ink. (We have mentioned this flower before in this blog.)

We got to the waterfall which was falling very picturesquely, and had tea. This is Jan with a rock for his mother-in-law whose rock was stolen - and Lydia, Alexander and Robynne.

Robynne and Stephen with the monster that turned into Richard, who then tried to mesmerise us with his scarf, but only Dawnie was impressed.

The rest of us just set about texting or finishing our tea on the rocks.

Jan with his rock.

There were lots of these little yellow lobelias (Monopsis lutea).

Dawnie and I were grateful for this short dip in a mountain stream, even though we were not at all hot what with the air conditioning being turned on to maximum strength.

On the way back we came across this Light from Africa ceramic studio, but as it didn't say "tea and scones", I pushed on resolutely, tail in the air ...

through the remaining pine plantations back to the cars at Constantia Nek ... where Lydia and Jan bought some delectable looking fruit before we headed on home.